Eli's dinosaur lunchbox came home on Tuesday with the quesadilla gone, the pretzels gone, the yogurt tube squeezed flat and every single apple slice still in it, brown as a paper bag. Wednesday, same thing. By Thursday morning I had my first adjustment of the school year.
Packing lunches is one of the places where our grocery budget gets real. We have a fifth grader and a first grader, which means nine packed lunches a week (Wyatt buys on pizza Fridays, $3.10 at school this year), and they come out to about $1.60 each. Here's the rotation, what it costs and what comes back home.
The rotation
Wyatt, Monday through Thursday:
- Monday: turkey and cheese sandwich, pretzels, an apple, a cookie
- Tuesday: PB&J, baby carrots, a banana, a yogurt tube
- Wednesday: ham and cheese roll-ups in a flour tortilla, grapes, Goldfish
- Thursday: a build-your-own snack box with crackers, cheese cubes, pepperoni, grapes and a few chocolate chips
Eli, Monday through Friday:
- Cold cheese quesadilla wedges on Monday and Thursday (yes, cold, it's his favorite lunch)
- Crackers and cheese cubes on Tuesday
- Half a PB&J on Wednesday, crusts on, because he's not that picky
- Mini pancakes on Friday, with a tiny cup of syrup he never opens
- Every day: fruit, Goldfish or pretzels, and a yogurt tube
Eli carries his dinosaur-print insulated lunchbox with a Bentgo Kids insert inside, which is the only reason his food arrives in separate compartments the way he requires. Wyatt has a plain navy lunch bag and does not care what touches what. Both get an ice pack. First graders eat at 10:55, so Eli's lunch sits for about three hours, and Wyatt's closer to four. I follow USDA guidance on keeping packed lunches cold, and for questions about what's right for your own kids, your pediatrician is a better source than a food blog.
What it costs
I priced a few lunches out to the cent:
- Wyatt's turkey and cheese: bread 18 cents, turkey 63, cheese 18, apple 42, pretzels 15, cookie 10. Total $1.66.
- Wyatt's PB&J: bread 18 cents, peanut butter and jelly 25, baby carrots 15, banana 18, yogurt tube 35. Total $1.11.
- Eli's quesadilla: tortilla 19 cents, cheese 27, apple 42, Goldfish 22, yogurt tube 35. Total $1.45.
- Wyatt's snack box is the expensive one, at about $2.30 for the crackers, cheese, pepperoni, grapes and chocolate chips.
Across the week it averages about $1.60 a lunch, or roughly $14.40 for nine. The lunch part of my weekly list is a loaf of bread, deli turkey, ham, sliced cheese, a block of cheddar to cube, tortillas, a 3-pound bag of apples, bananas, grapes, baby carrots, yogurt tubes and crackers. Pretzels, Goldfish and peanut butter come in the big Costco sizes and last for weeks.
Next to a $3.10 school lunch, packing saves us about $1.50 a lunch, or $13.50 a week for the two boys. That adds up over a school year. I'll also say that some mornings the math loses to the clock, and Wyatt buying lunch on a random Tuesday is not a crisis at our house.
What comes home
The apples are the big one. Eli will eat a whole apple at the kitchen table, but he won't touch a brown slice, and cut apples brown fast in a lunchbox. Wednesday night I tried a quick soak in salt water (a pinch of salt in a cup of water for five minutes, then a rinse), and the slices stayed white, but Eli says he can taste it. Thursday he got clementine segments instead, and that compartment came back empty. Clementines cost more until they're in season, so for now I'll rotate them with grapes.
Wyatt brings home his baby carrots about half the time. He eats carrots at dinner without complaint, so I think this is about lunch being 25 minutes long with recess right after. I'm going to keep sending them, just fewer.
One thing that worked right away: yogurt tubes go into the freezer the night before. They double as a second ice pack and have thawed to a slush by lunch, which both boys consider a treat.
Tomorrow is pizza Friday, which means one less lunch to pack and one very happy fifth grader.
